Wikipedia talk:Vital articles#Swap: Remove Gunpowder, Add Propellant

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The purpose of this talk page is for discussions on over-arching matters regarding vital articles, including making proposals or asking questions about procedures, policies, quotas, or other broad changes to any or all of the five levels. This page is not for proposing whether an article should be added or removed from any vital article lists, and such proposals should be posted on the following pages:

• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 1 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/1
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 2 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/2
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 3 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/3
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 4 vital article, see Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/4
• For proposals regarding a specific individual Level 5 vital article, see the relevant sub-pages of Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/5

As this reorganization effects multiple levels, 24 articles, and crosses categories, I thought I'd bring it up for discussion here.

Technology is over quota and needs some breathing room, and geography has some room. I'd suggest swapping in some or all of the navigation articles in the technology section to geography. We already list cartography and map making technologies in geography, so navigation concepts and technology make some sense. In the navigation section, we have articles like {{VA link| North}}, {{VA link| South}}, {{VA link| East}}, {{VA link| West}} that I think can be moved without a second thought. We also have {{VA link|Remote sensing}} technologies like {{VA link|Radar}} and {{VA link|Lidar}} under navigation, while remote sensing is under geography already. Finally, we have stuff like {{VA link| Satellite navigation}} and related technologies, {{VA link|Compass}} that might be more questionable, although I believe with remote sensing and {{VA link|Cartography}} in the geography section, these inclusions aren't problematic.

I think this might help take pressure off of the technology section, and help group spatial topics together instead of scattering them between sections.

(Note: This proposal is part of a broader concept I have for a reorganization of the geography section. I'm proposing this part now because technology needs the space, but had this in mind already. Please see discussion "Broad reorganization of geography" if you're interested in that.)

;Support

1. As nom GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:48, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose some

;Oppose all

;Neutral

;Discuss

While it would free up a little space in Tech, I personally think most of these things belong more in Tech. Besides most of the subject depth being technological, they have many applications that are really only spatial in a very abstract way: military targeting, collision avoidance, meteorology, etc. If anything, I'd say {{VA link|Remote sensing}} probably belongs in Tech too. That said, I've always particularly disliked us listing social conventions under Tech so I would totally support moving {{VA link|Cardinal direction}} and the 4 directions to Geography. Since the parent article is at Lv4 though (and so is {{VA link|Remote sensing}}), those should probably be proposed on the Lv4 page. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:11, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

:I guess this is really three proposals, with the cardinal directions being one (Easiest to include), remote sensing tech being another, and navigation technology like GPS and compass being the third. Some that I proposed in terms of wayfinding and land navigation could also go into a "Navigation" section within geography. Depending on how this goes I think some of the time keeping tech might fit into the history section, especially the type of calendars, months, and days of the week.

:Remote sensing is the one that bugs me the most in terms of organization. I teach remote sensing in a geography department and we use both Radar and Lidar, so it isn't unheard of for the discipline to include it. {{VA link|Cartography}}, {{VA link|Geographic information system}}, are also straddling the gap between tech and geography. Both the definitions of cartography and remote sensing, depending on source, start with "Art, science, and technology." I want to add {{VA link|Satellite imagery}} somewhere, but {{VA link|Radar}} and {{VA link|Lidar}} muddy the waters with where that should be. The problem is that geography includes physical and human sciences, and these bits are the "STEM" part of geography. Something I JUST found to further muddy this is that {{VA link|Map}} is listed as technology at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/3#Navigation_and_timekeeping level 3], but geography at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Geography/Physical level 5]. Moving all the maps level 5 articles from geography to tech would add a lot to tech. {{VA link|Geodetic datum}} is definitely a technology that geographers/cartographers widely employee, and {{VA link|Geoid}} is as well. {{VA link|Surveying}} being under geography would start a fight at some schools, and {{VA link|Geodesy}} is under the Physical sciences section.

:As noted in my above proposal, I want to make a section for technical geography separate from physical, and human (cities and countries/regions). It could be called something like "Basics and technical" if needed and absorb a lot of this mess. Similarly, it could have a navigation section. I'd hope such a section could descramble our spatial articles a bit. This mess is why acting on the proposal you closed is a bit challenging, I've been trying to untangle this situation. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:24, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

::Yeah, the issue found with {{VA link|Map}} is one of several little organizational quirks we still haven't ironed out. I think it's largely a result of topics subdividing and re-parenting each other as we go down levels; I actually have detecting those as a minor item on my VA bot to-do list.

::For {{VA link|Remote sensing}}, after I looked at the article further, I think the ambiguity may be in the article itself (and even some of the citations), not just where we sort it. It's part WP:Broad-concept article (which would almost definitely belong in Tech), part Earth-observation-specific (which almost definitely belongs in Geography).

::Funny enough, situations like that are the main thing I believe justifies Lv5; it's very good at bringing out structural issues between topics. Unfortunately, there's still so much churn that I don't think we take the time to actually resolve things on the articles. I've been keeping a to-do list of ideas on my user-page, but I keep finding other things to do myself, and I don't think my "Lv5 is for refactoring" view has caught on. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:53, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I've had this turning over a bit in my mind, and I realized that my ideal way to resolve this ties to a longer-term proposal I've had in my notes. Unfortunately, I don't think we have the bandwidth for it right now (if anything, we should prioritize the Life Sciences). Until then, I think it will be simpler to leave most navigation articles (as techniques for solving a problem) with Tech, but anything more general & scientific like cartography probably makes more sense in Geography. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

;Proposal signature

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:48, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The article states that “after 60 days it [a level 1-3 vote] may be closed as NO CONSENSUS if the proposal has (a) less than 5 supports, AND (b) less than two-thirds support.” I wonder whether this should be read as “It can be closed if (a) AND (b) both apply simultaneously,” or as “It can be closed if (a), AND it can be closed if (b).” Could someone please clarify? BlazingBlast (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

:That's a really good catch (I mainly participate at Level 5 nowadays), and I suspect it's actually a mistake. I'm pretty sure they're just meant to negate the Passing conditions, but if so, No Consensus conditions should be phrased "(a) OR (b)" (see De Morgan's Laws for the deets).

:Honestly though, even that approach doesn't account for the Failing conditions and it's arguably unnecessary anyways. We could probably replace it with a much simpler, plain-English statement like "After 60 days, it may be closed NO CONSENSUS if it doesn't meet passing or failing conditions". Of course, others would need to verify I'm interpreting the spirit of the rule correctly. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:51, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

:I believe it's meant to be “It can be closed if (a) AND (b) both apply simultaneously”. J947 ‡ ^edits 22:10, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

::I guess it's good BlazingBlast brought this up; nobody else is weighing in and we came to different conclusions. I don't have any personal issue with an "(a) AND (b) simultaneously" interpretation, but what does that mean for proposals where only one of (a) or (b) is true? They wouldn't be able to pass or fail, but we wouldn't be able to close them as No Consensus either. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a rule for closing after 60 days? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

{{atopg

| status = done

| result = Both points now addressed; will finish filling out new quota data shortly (it will only track the quotas for now, but with automation, can eventually become the source for all tables et al.) -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:31, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

}}

Hi everyone, I'm trying to wrap up some process discussions or changes, this time with the quotas. These should be short & sweet; I don't think they'll even need a vote. Since they technically affect Lv 4 & 5, I just wanted to check if here if anyone opposed.

First point: would anyone mind if I created a JSON subpage (similar to our "data/" subpages) and encoded our quotas there too? For now, it's just a prototype, but this would ultimately be the single source of truth for bots to work from when updating the Lv 4 & 5 tables.

• Not sure what a JSON does, but we need a source of current counts. Anything is better than looking at most recent manual updates.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:20, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

:It's just a data format for listing objects: easy for a human to read or edit, but also easy to import for most programming languages nowadays. Apparently it takes an admin to set a page officially to a JSON model though.

:{{ping|MSGJ}} I'm not sure we've every interacted, but I've seen you swing by VA as an admin several times. Would you be willing to create a new JSON page through ChangeContentModel at Wikipedia:Vital articles/quotas.json? I can fill it out myself, but if you see any issues or want to place it somewhere else (like the data/ subdirectory), we can tweak our plans. Thank you in advance. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

::Yes, no problem. That sounds like a good idea. Perhaps better as a subpage of Wikipedia:Vital articles/data so that all the json pages are in one place? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:57, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

:::I was thinking of that, and while it makes sense from a human perspective, I don't know for sure how carefully Cewbot grabs all those pages. It's possible a new .json in the folder might confuse the bot or other workflows we may not be aware of.

:::I'm definitely not opposed to putting it in another (lower-case named) subdirectory though; maybe something like "controls" (in the managerial sense)? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 13:39, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Second point: can we affirm that the 2% cushions at these levels are just to add slack to the process? And by process, I don't just mean proposals, but also things like updating the summary tables. In other words, they're not an unofficial quota to target, and we shouldn't wait until we hit those guardrails to trim or fill in a section (unless an agreed change programme is in effect). I don't want to update any guidelines or anything, or worry about anything retroactively. I just want to see if we can get on the same page going forward. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 16:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

{{abot}}

On each level of the vital articles, there is a random article button on each level as well as each category. Originally, the random article button was for the top-level categories beginning with :Category:Wikipedia level-1 vital articles, but the articles are now sorted by article quality and category. I put a temporary solution in to combine multiple categories into one, but I am hoping for a solution that randomizes the vital articles better. I particularly like this feature of vital article for two reasons. Obviously, one is to improve the articles, but I also find it a neat way to read random articles as a reader. Any ideas on how I can do this? Interstellarity (talk) 00:44, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

:Since nobody else has replied yet, I was just wondering what you were picturing more precisely? You mentioned wanting to randomize things better, but I'm guessing you really meant you want to filter on categories more easily? Or do you mean it doesn't actually seem to be fully randomizing things? -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:20, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|Zar2gar1}} When the random articles were created, they were created to randomize categories like these: :Category:Wikipedia_level-2_vital_articles. However, when those articles got removed from the category, they are in categories like topics and article quality. I did a temporary solution doing multiple categories at once. I'm currently exploring a tool called WP:PetScan, but I'm not sure how to create a button like the ones we have. How do you feel about removing the buttons for now until we resolve the random article buttons? Interstellarity (talk) 01:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

:::I don't use the buttons much myself so if you want to cut them for now, I'm OK with that. You may just want to wait a few days in case anyone else would be opposed. I actually only tweaked one of them a few months ago when someone mentioned that it was acting buggy. Beyond that, I personally haven't been focused on them. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:02, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

User:MSGJ and User:Kammerer55, I have two suggestions for improvement:

1. Could we make the template accept multiple (say 20) links separated by pipes with a single deployment for greater efficiency of use.
2. Is it possible to make it present mouseover options for all levels on which it appears rather than just the highest.

I don't know what others think about these suggestions, but I presume they would be as helpful to others as they would be to me.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:42, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

:Something to signify non-listed articles as such, like a red X after the VA symbol, would be nice for easily differentiating them from normal wikilinks.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 18:48, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

:I can't speak for either of the original template authors, and I agree it would be nice to have something like these at some point. But I think we need to be careful before trying to roll it into the VA link template immediately.

:Your first feature probably wouldn't be too hard, but we already have unintended consequences with the existing template. We should probably fix those before adding to it. There are also accessibility issues with the current way we do things (like the icons), even if they don't directly affect me or most editors.

:As for the mouse-over feature, that would be helpful too, but I'm pretty sure that would require a separate JS user-script. The template could maybe help preprocess some data for it; then you have to be careful not to clutter up things for those without custom scripts though. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 19:20, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

{{atopg

| status = done

| result = Timeline page created at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Figures timeline, also with its own discussion page. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 11:36, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

}}

This subject has been previously discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 62#Timeline of significant figures.

As @Chaotic Enby pointed out: the timeline {{tq|could make it a pretty useful reference for articles about famous figures needing improvement, without claiming that these are necessarily the most significant ever.}}

If you're worried about the eras being too eurocentric, then I made a guideline for different regions to help combat this. You can find it here: User:Wikieditor662/sandbox#Guidelines. You may ignore the rest of that article though, it's similar but not the one I'm proposing here.

The proposed timeline can look something like this: User:Wikieditor662/Vital sandbox, and can be a WikiProject subpage, as @Folly Mox suggested.

What do you all think?

Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

:Thanks for the ping! Instead of coloring based on periods, I'm wondering if it could be feasible to make it so the color automatically matches the article's quality class (with a class icon for colorblind people), to help highlight which articles are in need of improvement. Either way, it can definitely be a pretty neat way to visualize our biographical vital articles! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:07, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

::I'm glad you like the idea! And perhaps we could have it both colored based on time period AND a class icon for the article's quality class. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:42, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

:I'd be willing to assist _pbp 16:39, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::Great to hear! Do we need more approval first, or are we able to implement it now? Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:33, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:::{{Ping|Wikieditor662}} Do it! Post a link on my talk page when you do! _pbp 17:17, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

::::@Purplebackpack89 I added it, thanks! You can find it here: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Figures timeline. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:16, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::I mentioned it in your talk page too. Wikieditor662 (talk) 01:47, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:I have no problem with it as long as it and especially any discussions are on their own subpage. The only issue I could see is to make sure it's actually adding to Wikipedia and not just diverting effort from existing timelines, as articles or wikiprojects. I think the VA project already loses sight of its purpose way too much (at least at the larger levels) and sometimes actively discourages improving the articles we do list. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:31, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

{{abot}}

1. They do NOT mimic the scope of paper encyclopedias (a multivolume paper encyclopedia has a number of topics more commensurate with Lv 4 than Lvs 1 or 2)
2. It is impossible to distill all knowledge into just 10 topics
3. And nearly impossible to distill it into 100 topics
4. With only 100 slots, there are lots and lots of things missing (not a single biography, not a single nation, none of the other planets of the Solar System, music itself but no genres or instruments, religion itself but no examples of religion)
5. And many of the Lv 1 and Lv 2 topics, while obviously important, are so impossibly broad that getting them to FA or GA is unlikely. (How do you distill {{VA link|Human history}} or {{VA link|Music}} or {{VA link|Earth}} into a single reasonably-sized article?)
6. If it WAS possible to get all 10 articles at VA1 to GA or FA, it could be done relatively quickly and we could move on to something else

_pbp 16:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:The purpose of the VA project is: "The five nested vital article levels are meant to give direction to the prioritization of improvements of English Wikipedia articles (e.g. which articles to bring to WP:GA and WP:FA status), to provide a measurement of quality of overall English Wikipedia (e.g. what proportion of the most important articles are at GA and FA status), and to serve as a centralized watchlist of English Wikipedia's most important articles."

:Vital 1 and 2 address this goal better then the others. We are not trying to mimic the scope of paper encyclopedias, and not trying to distill knowledge. While it might be difficult to get them to FA or GA status, that would be a good goal and if we could do it quickly we should. That said, the project serves as a Watchlist, so maintaining certain key articles against vandalism. The vital articles are essentially a priority list for attention from editors, articles that the project should focus on improving and maintaining. This is based on the Vital Article criteria, and criteria 1, 2, and 3 are going to be largely why biographies and countries are not included. The list is human and Earth centric, information about the smaller moons of Saturn is not really that important to the other articles on Wikipedia.

:The vital article criteria:

:# Coverage: Vital articles at higher levels tend to "cover" more topics and be broader in their scope. For example, {{VA link|Science}} is a Vital-1 article, while {{VA link|Scientific method}} is a lower level of vitality. Determining which articles are vital at lower levels often involves looking at the articles at higher levels. For example, since {{VA link|History}} is of high vitality, {{VA link|World War II}} is also a vital article, just at a lower level.

:# Essential to Wikipedia's other articles: While {{VA link|Scientific method}} may be less vital than {{VA link|Science}}, since it is such a critical topic regarding science, covering many science-related topics in Wikipedia, it is undoubtedly a vital article.

:# Notability: Individuals within the People section represent the pinnacles of their field with a material impact on the course of humanity, such as {{VA link|Albert Einstein}} in "Inventors and scientists", {{VA link|William Shakespeare}} in "Authors", and {{VA link|Genghis Khan}} on "Leaders".

:# No (Western) bias: While the vitals list is for English Wikipedia, the focus is on the world. For example, the current consensus for Level 3 is to list two cities in China (Hong Kong, Beijing) and India (Delhi, Mumbai), but only one in the United States.

:# Pageviews: The number of views a page receives should be considered (i.e. it is a proxy on its importance to Wikipedia's structure), however, pageviews should be treated with caution as they can be driven by WP:RECENTISM, which is a particular concern at Levels 1-4.

:GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:35, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:Yeah, to be completely honest I never understood V1 and V2. It is somewhat reasonable to come up with a list of the 1,000, 10,000, and 50,000 (maybe 100,000) most important topics to an encyclopedia, even if the vital articles process as a whole can turn into a popularity contest amongst editors. But only 10 and 100 articles just feels like unnecessary categorization that solely exists to give us a smooth number evolution (if that's the right word?). But even then, that ends with V5 (going from 10,000 to 50,000), so eh.

:I also have several questions regarding what even makes a topic vital at those levels. We list the {{VA link|Moon}} at V2; if humanity reaches {{VA link|Mars}} at some point and starts inhabiting it, would we upgrade it to V2 or even V1 to be alongside {{VA link|Earth}}? I doubt it, but that kind of reflects the issue of only being able to list 10 or 100 topics at one level. There's also the concern about maintaining these articles, which is another big factor of vital articles that most people seem to forget about (myself included). I completely agree with pbp's stance on that.

:And the idea that the vital articles process isn't meant to replicate a traditional encyclopedia is wrong, as I believe the vital articles process stems from Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics (plus the "supplements"), which was a selection of Wikipedia articles that were meant to be printed onto traditional book encyclopedias or burned onto CDs. So at its core, yes, vital articles I believe are meant to replicate the scope of a traditional encyclopedia. λ NegativeMP1 17:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::I will say I like the "Elite Nine" better then the 10 at vital 1, if for rather obvious and self serving reasons. While that might be where it stems from (I'm not sure of the history on this), the project page doesn't discuss this goal as far as I can tell. If that IS a goal, we need to state it. If that was the case, the proposal I would have to meet it would likely not be popular, i.e., the top 10 would be the "Volumes," level 2 would be the section headings within those volumes, and each layer would be nested categories within the one above it. This is not really what we're doing here. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:Just a note that we have (a generous we, I had nothing to do with it) distilled both Human History and Earth into a single article, the first is a GA, the second a FA. CMD (talk) 17:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::{{Question}} Do you mean one article that distills human history AND Earth that I'm not aware of, or two separate articles for Human history and Earth? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:07, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:::Separate. In fact, six of our 10 level 1 articles are GAs or FAs! This is by far the highest average quality out of the vital article levels, and if I recall some of the nominations correctly, this is directly due to their positioning as level 1 articles. CMD (talk) 18:11, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::::Thanks for the clarification, looking at your original comment I should have been able to figure it out but wasn't reading closely enough. Just a note, while I can't remember the exact dates or timeline, I started to vote on vital articles after contributing on Wikipedia:Articles for improvement/Articles. The reason I mention is that on Articles for Improvement, I and others occasionally used an articles vital article status as part of the nomination. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:20, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::::If six of ten are already GA or FA, that means we could probably get the other four to GA in 2025. If we can't, probably no one can. _pbp 19:52, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::An admirable goal! My focus is on the page Geography, and I've had an open request for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Geography/archive1 Peer review] for a bit more then a month to get further direction, and I'm currently working on finalizing a GA [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Technical_geography/GA2] nomination for {{VA link|Technical geography}}, after going through a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Technical_geography/archive1 peer review] for it. The process is a lot of work, and requires expert knowledge on the subject in my opinion. If you want to start work on one of the top 10, I'd recommend starting by checking it yourself, then nominating it for peer review. After you address the peer review response, GA is a bit easier. The process is time intensive though, and I've been working on geography for well over a year without feeling like I'm close to nominating it. If you pick one out and want eyes on it, I can try and help. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:18, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:All of your points are valid, but my impression was always that Lv 1 and 2 exist for slightly different reasons. I think they're essentially supposed to be watchlists for first- and second-level categories of the entire encyclopedia. So the focus is more on maintenance and organization than improvements. IDK for sure but Lv1 may have even been picked to approximate the Dewey Decimal System.

:While I know it's not how we officially think of vitality, it makes a little more sense to me if you think of the different levels as grade-appropriate topics in a classroom. Levels 1 and 2 would be the sort of thing a primary school or basic remedial teacher may ask someone to read about. And by the time you get to Level 5, the depth & breadth should probably be the sort of things an undergraduate university student might encounter.

:Beyond all that though, I don't have any issue with the top 2 levels. I don't think they do any harm, regardless of whether they're useful or not, and they're by far the lowest maintenance part of the project. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 03:31, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

According to the guidelines on closing discussions on level 5, discussions may not be closed until 7 days after the last vote. That means that support votes couant against closing discussions as passed, and oppose votes count against closing as failed. I think this is unreasonable. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

:If you apply the rule rigidly, yes, it could string along proposals that are obviously passing / failing. We often just invoke WP:AVALANCHE or WP:SNOW though to close things early once the margin is overwhelming. There's not a hard guideline, but I usually do it at +5 for support (e.g. 6-1) or +3 for oppose (e.g. 1-4). Once you factor that in, the rule really only kicks in on closer votes, where closing too soon after a vote could be seen as pushing on the scale. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

• Agree with headline assertion _pbp 16:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I am proposing that include an upper level called Level 0 that includes just one article that is the most important article on Wikipedia. I’m not sure if this will get a consensus or whether we will a consensus on which article belongs on level 0, but my first thought would be Human or Earth with a slight preference for human. What do you think?

;Support

1. Interstellarity (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose

1. Oppose unless a solid case for utility is made. I don't see how this would be very useful based on the projects goals GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:27, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
2. As if the concerns behind the subjectivity and editorial bias across the entire vital articles process wasn't apparent enough. How do you select one article that represents everything that Level 1 lists. How. I don't even think there's an article on Wikipedia that covers Mathematics, Arts, Human, Human History, Earth, and more. And any one of the ten articles at V1 being listed as the #1 most important on the site would raise so many problems and subjectivity concerns it'd be hard to list them all. Hell, there is currently a still open debate about whether or not Level 1 and 2 were useful at all, and you want an even higher level than that? I mean no offense here, but I can't understand the idea behind this at all. Infact, I nearly replied to this with just "...What?" and would've left it at that, since that was literally the only thing going through my mind for a good five minutes upon seeing this, before realizing I should probably explain why I oppose this idea. λ NegativeMP1 22:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
3. :The closest article I could find that covers everything is Everything, which theoretically should be level 1, but it probably won’t be anytime soon. Interstellarity (talk) 16:46, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
4. Somewhat feels like April Fool's came a few weeks early. As Negative notes, I have concerns about Level 1; I think picking a single most important article is rather absurd. _pbp 03:48, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
5. Clear diminishing returns as other have indicated.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:22, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

;Neutral

• The most important thing on Wikipedia is You, the editor who makes it happen or the reader who is learning. CMD (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

;Discuss

• {{Comment}} If we can agree that {{VA link|42 (number)}} should be the article that sums up {{VA link|Life}}, the {{VA link|Universe}}, and {{VA link|Everything}}, I'll change my vote. It could be a fun April Fools day prank. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:53, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

It's a fun, little thought experiment (and would actually be a really good satire for April Fools, like GeogSage suggested). As an actual policy though, I think this would be losing sight of the entire reason for the VA project. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

When I have proposed moving entries between different subpages, I have often been told that I don't need as many support votes as for a proposal to add or remove entries, but I don't want to close discussions or carry out the proposed moves without support from the formal guidelines, and I rarely get enough votes. Thus I propose the following guideline for closing move proposals:

• A move proposal may be closed by any editor when the following criteria applies:
• The discussion must have run for at least 7 days.
• To close as passed, it must have at least two support votes and more support votes than oppose votes.
• To close as failed, it must have at least two oppose votes and at least as many oppose votes as support votes.

;Support as proposed

1. As nom. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:15, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

;Less stringent criteria

1. I've mentioned elsewhere that I really don't like the idea of multiple, parallel vote procedures (piggy-backing off the existing ones is less of an issue). That said, I think we should state the current practice for moves, and organization in general, clearly somewhere. I would encourage people to be a little bold with moves though; our current practice for organization in general has been close to WP:BRD. A talk-page notice is probably good if you're unsure or think it could be controversial, and taking some votes doesn't hurt for batch moves. Even if you do take votes though, I view organization as more fluid than article proposals and don't think you need to hit the full quorum, especially if there's no opposition (tacit consent). -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

;More stringent criteria

;Don't introduce criteria for move proposals

;Discussion

{{ping|Zar2gar1}} I intended to propose that WP:BRD should apply to moving entries within the same page, but I forgot to write it. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 17:55, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

:The main level pages say that changes must not be made without discussion. We should clarify that this only applies to replacing, adding and removing entries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lophotrochozoa (talk • contribs) 21:05, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Does no one other than me and Zar2gar1 care about the organization of the lists? Or do most people not read this talk page? Or do people think that the rules as written shouldn't match practice? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:If no one objects, I'm going to change the rules. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

::Yeah, I object. Sometimes, failure to attract support is the actual feedback. Jclemens (talk) 20:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

:::{{ping|Jclemens}} Do you mean that all reorganizations should be forbidden unless supported by four votes (five for levels 1-4) or do you mean that we shouldn't clarify that? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:18, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The top two sections at Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/2 total 100 articles. However, :Category:Wikipedia level-2 vital articles by topic and :Category:Level-2 vital articles by quality total 90. How can this be?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:08, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:The categories do not contain the level 1 articles. CMD (talk) 09:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

::Is this something that we should fix. Should articles appear in all lof the categories for the levels below their most vital level?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:41, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I could be wrong since I don't fiddle with categories much, but I think that would require making each higher level a subcategory of the lower. I'm pretty sure Wikipedia treats categories like strict types instead of tags you can mix-and-match. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I thought WP:SYSTEMICBIAS was a norm all across the project (as in, we have it but we strive to reduce it). Yet so far all four people who commented at Wikipedia_talk%3AVital_articles%2FLevel%2F3#Remove_English_literature_3 pretty much say, well, I'll just quote two primary arguments there: "Vital in a list tailored to the English Wikipedia." and "The Vital Articles project is explicitly geared towards English Wikipedia"... Is this indeed something that is written in the VA definition or is it the consensus now? Which is puzzling b/c just last year or so I recall being involved in numerous proposals in which we were removing many US-centric topics, and similar (Canada-centric, UK-centric, etc.). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:44, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• "From VA, "Unlike the list of articles every Wikipedia should have, they are tailored to the English Wikipedia and are actively maintained by the dedicated WikiProject Vital Articles." Right now, the debate seems to be HOW tailored to English it is... _pbp 02:50, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• :This needs further debate. My reading of it, based on my experiences here, until that particular discussion, is that this simply means we don't use interlanguage links to link to articles on other Wikipedias which do not exist here yet (i.e. we don't include red links). The wording is unfortunate in its lack of clarity and I'd support removing that entire sentence, as it promotes SYSTEMICBIAS in our coverage. English Wikipedia is an international project in English, and IMHO Vital articles are a list of topics vital to the entire world, not just to English-speakers. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:13, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::VA also contains the wording: "No (Western) bias: While the vitals list is for English Wikipedia, the focus is on the world." _pbp 08:00, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::Yet in reality, based on the now-closed discussion, this does not seem to be the case. That means I am going to withdraw from being active here, as my activity has been focused on trying to ensure the vital list is not affected by sysbias, which it seems is not desired anymore. Cheers, _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::It is supposed to be more general, but it is mostly a popularity contest. People aren't voting based on the VA criteria, they vote based on what they feel is more important to them. We need more people who actually read the rules/criteria and think to be involved. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 15:45, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::@Piotrus TBH, I wish you'd stay awhile instead of withdrawing _pbp 16:16, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::Do clarify, please. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:17, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::@Piotrus: I wish you'd continue to participate at the Vital articles project _pbp 13:46, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::@Purplebackpack89 Ok. Sulking is not my style, but I was really surprised by that particular discussion... but yes, in the end, ensuring neutrality has to be done through active participation, right? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:21, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::I rarely participate in VA 1-3; although I did skim-read the discussion earlier, had I noticed at the time that {{VA link|English literature}} is the ONLY language-specific literature listing at that level I would've voted in support of removal.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 14:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• Isn't our task to determine the most important articles for improvement on ENWP?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• :We are trying "to give direction to the prioritization of improvements of English Wikipedia articles," "provide a measurement of quality of overall English Wikipedia," and create "a centralized watchlist of English Wikipedia's most important articles." There are five criteria listed for inclusion:
• :#Coverage
• :#Essential to Wikipedia's other articles
• :#Notability
• :#No (Western) bias:
• :#Pageviews
• :Bias towards English language, such as an emphasis on {{VA link| English literature}}, would be western bias and violate criteria 4. For example, {{VA link|Chinese literature}} and {{VA link|Spanish literature}} are level 4 despite, being more widely spoken then English. Of course, people people aren't voting based on the VA criteria, they vote based on what they feel is more important to them, and most people here are going to feel English literature is more important then Chinese. This is their western bias. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::English is definitely more widely spoken than Chinese, and Spanish is also "Western". I wouldn't off the top of my head consider any particular language corpus as more vital, but there's probably more going on than latent western bias. CMD (talk) 05:27, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::There may be an argument to replace English literature with a broader concept of {{VA link|Western canon}} (which currently is not even VA5? Sigh). That could be reasonable. But English literature is too narrow of a concept to be at V3, IMHO. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:13, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::PS. English has fewer native speakers than Chinese or Spanish, but more total speakers if you consider ESLs and such. English literature is reasonably global, due to popularity of translations. But, see my comment just above. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• And on that note, don’t other language wikis have their own native language lists different from ours? We’re not making a list for the whole of the project interlingually. Hyperbolick (talk) 04:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• :English Wikipedia is de facto global Wikipedia, it just happen to be written in English. See WP:SYSTEMICBIAS. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Every language version of Wikipedia is intended to be global (the WMF is exploring a global NPOV policy). If there is something special about en.wiki, that is a reflection of the English language, not of any difference between en.wiki and es.wiki. CMD (talk) 23:47, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

:I agree that Anglocentric bias should be avoided, and I would have voted to remove if I had seen that discussion in time. Unfortunately, the VA project can be a bit of a popularity contest at times, although VA1 and VA2 are pretty good at avoiding that. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:06, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Happy April Fools day, my dudes! _pbp 14:23, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

:Should rename it into a subpage of Wikipedia:April Fools/April Fools' Day 2025 now that it's no longer April Fools day? Lophotrochozoa (talk) 11:15, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

::The page has been renamed to Wikipedia:April Fools/April Fools' Day 2025/Vital articles/Level/0. Lophotrochozoa (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The Core Contest—Wikipedia's most exciting contest{{cn}}—returns again this year from April 15 to May 31. The goal: to improve vital or other core articles, with a focus on those in the worst state of disrepair. Editing can be done individually, but in the past groups have also successfully competed. Winners are those who provide "best additive encyclopedic value", judged by the amount of improvement and 'coreness' of articles. Signups are open now. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 13:24, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi, this is an invitation to discuss which articles to remove from level 4 since this is over quota, since we need to figure out which articles to discuss removal of since there aren't much removal nominations as of now. Thanks. PrimalMustelid (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Since the buttoned links for levels 4 and 5 on the vital article pages appear to be redirects unlike with the other levels (they have slashes in the end), can someone fix that if possible? Thanks. PrimalMustelid (talk) 22:40, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Well, that's what I'm proposing. I know interwikis ain't perfect, but...

1. If pageviews can be considered, interwikis should be as well
2. Interwikis are a reasonable metric for comparing two similar topics
3. Interwikis are about as good a measure of international notoriety as anything we have
4. Every VA article, at every level, should have at least one
5. Articles at VA4 and higher should have several

_pbp 20:35, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:It's certainly not perfect, but it helps to paint the picture. I'm not in love with page views as it's very WP:RECENTISM, but interwikis can help provide a larger, non-en.wiki viewpoint of things that are important for balance. GauchoDude (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:Yes, mentioning often-used stats but not necessarily limiting to those, with wording something along the lines of "The other vitality criteria should be balanced against fame, indicated by statistics such as amount of pageviews and interwiki links, although these should be treated with caution as they can be influenced WP:RECENTISM and other problems".--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 21:09, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:Just want to note, I proposed something similar a while ago [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Archive_28#Amend_the_criteria_for_what_makes_an_article_vital_to_include_the_number_of_%22Wikilinks%22? Amend the criteria for what makes an article vital to include the number of "Wikilinks"?]. Closed 8 February 2025 (UTC). We needed a clean proposal, but that hasn't happened yet. Should probably inform this content. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:I would support explicitly mentioning interwikis as a useful statistic for determining vitality, alongside pageviews. I personally find interwikis more useful than pageviews, as the latter tend to be affected by recentism. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:05, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:So I've been looking at this a bit for the past few months, and think we should avoid narrow inclusion criteria like "interwiki" and "page views" and instead try to include multiple variables. I had discussed this a bit on @Zar2gar1's talk page, but put it on a backburner before coming back to it and restarting the closed discussion linked above in this thread. Just some notes if anyone wants to help. So far, I have a rough python script and a CSV you can see [https://github.com/GeogSage/Wiki_Vital here] that takes us to level 3. It is rough, and I hope to improve it over time. I have not collected data for level 4 yet as I want to first get some numbers at levels 1, 2, and 3. If anyone wants to look at the CSV or play with the script, please do.

:I'm looking at creating an Index (statistics) or something over the summer (work has been in the way of stuff like this) but there are several statistics I think we should include in addition to links. Once we have a good set of variables for a vitality estimate, we can weight it to better fit the different levels of the project. For example:

:$V\; =\; \backslash frac\{\; \{S*\}\; l\}\{q\}$

:Where:

:V is the "Vitality estimation"

:S is the raw score we calculate using the aggregated indicators (This is obviously going to be it's own equation, but I'm hoping to include page views, page watchers, and some combination of the different types of links)

:l is the (current) vitality level of the article. Calculated in a way where Level 1 might be 1, level 2 might be 0.8, level 3 might be 0.6, level 4 might be 0.5, level 5 might be 0.4, and non vital articles 0.3.

:q is the quota of the section the article is in at level 5

:This would also make it almost impossible to skip levels, and might facilitate comparison between categories. Of course, I need to figure out the "raw score" first, so I'm kind of getting ahead of things by thinking of weights and normalizations. This is where I am in terms of looking at VA levels 1-3. The analysis to create such an index would be textbook I think, not really ground breaking methodology. I think that some of the qualitative aspects can be accounted for though by playing with how we include the section quotas and vitality levels.

:If we look at the xtools for a page like geography [https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Geography], we can see several stats that are useful/meaningful. The variable I'm most interested in is "Page Watchers" as I suspect that value will be highly correlated with how the community views the article. When it comes to how we view vitality though, it is important to note the multiple functions of the vital article list, specifically "to serve as a centralized watchlist of English Wikipedia's most important articles." Articles with a lot of page views are going to be subject to vandalism and well intentioned but inappropriate edits more often then articles without a lot of views. Furthermore, articles that have a lot of views are articles society is finding use in, therefore they are "vital" to the function of the encyclopedia. Approaching these use cases one at a time can help inform our criteria if we restructure them. For articles like athletes, the only real reason to include most of them in my opinion is for this "watch page" function, as most athletes do not have lasting material impacts on their sport or society at large, but may be popular enough that we want to watch their page to keep them looking nice. I think at level 5 and regarding biographies, views are important metrics to consider. I think number of edits, specifically the number of IP and reverted edits, might be another important thing to consider.

:In terms of "links," we have multiple variables we should likely consider. I am personally a fan of "Links to this page" more then the "Languages" value. Looking at {{VA link|Geography}}, it has 259 languages, but 111,099 links to the page. There is going to be a much harder cap on the number of language links, but links to the page could help satisfy the vital article criteria of "Essential to Wikipedia's other articles," by quite literally illustrating how many articles link to it. I this is a more useful variable to look at overall, and that language links are essentially just going to help us with vital article criteria 4, "No (Western) bias." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::Interwiki links (the links in the Languages tab) show whether something is important by showing whether other wikis considered it a priority. They aren't perfect, but nothing really is. The problem with "links to this page" is that they are frequently changing and can be messed up by a variety of things, especially MOS:OL. Personally, I don't think using links between pages is a good idea, and I would prefer to use interwikis and pageviews as our two main statistics. Also, I see this project less like a massive watchlist and more like a list of articles to prioritize improving, which is why the Core Contest exists. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::That's fair, but I'm trying not to single down to one of the purposes of the project unless we change the set description. I'm using the project criteria and the description on the main page, specifically here: "The five nested vital article levels are meant to give direction to the prioritization of improvements of English Wikipedia articles (e.g. which articles to bring to WP:GA and WP:FA status), to provide a measurement of quality of overall English Wikipedia (e.g. what proportion of the most important articles are at GA and FA status), and to serve as a centralized watchlist of English Wikipedia's most important articles. Unlike the list of articles every Wikipedia should have, they are tailored to the English Wikipedia and are actively maintained by the dedicated WikiProject Vital Articles." Other Wiki's considering something a priority is really contradictory to the fact it the description specifies this is about English Wikipedia. A better

:::Trying to make an index based on the criteria:

:::* Coverage: This is hard, but categories might be one option to look at. I'm not sure.

:::* Essential to Wikipedia's other articles: This is where "links to this page" links might be useful. A proxy might be the number of watchers.

:::* Notability: Again, not sure how to quantify. A proxy might be the number of watchers.

:::* No (Western) bias: This is where "language links" might be useful.

:::* Pageviews: Obviously pageviews, but likely this could be folded in somewhere else. This is the only quantifiable metric we have listed in the criteria though, so it's hard to ignore when I'm looking at trying some form of consistent analysis.

:::One thing we might consider as well is making it so we only include a certain number of BLPs at level 5, and ban them from level 4 until they've been dead for a set amount of time. This would help with some of the recency bias while maintaining the function of a centralized watchlist. Say, at level 5 1,000 BLP or recently deceased articles are allowed. Hard limits like that might help a bit to avoid the Biography creep we experience. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::While I'm no professional mathematician, I last proposed a possible estimated vitality formula here, for reference. As a main point, I suggest using rankings-by-metric instead of raw stats, so that they become directly comparable and an article's highest and lowest scoring metrics can be discarded as possible outliers (so e.g. David Woodard ranking #1 by interwikis wouldn't make his article score very high since its other stats are used instead), although this has the side effect of smaller being better for the values used. As for not skipping levels, one implementation I've had in my head is that there would be lists of top non-VA articles & bottom VA5 articles (to aid in getting addition/removal ideas at VA5), top VA5 articles & bottom VA4 articles (for VA4 discussions), and so on - although maybe not for the highest levels since they're small enough to be easily maintained completely manually and I expect on them to be diminishing returns for relying on stats.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 19:43, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Not a mathematician, I do spatial stats but that's about it. I don't know if you've had a time to look at the csv I posted on Github or the code, but it has most of the variables you've discussed. My goal is to get a few more variables included (I'm struggling with the language links because they aren't on xtools I don't think) and then make functions out of it. How we measure/include the variables will be quite a challenge, as I think a quantitative metric like this will be something to inform us on articles, but won't be an absolute rule. We could even have some fun with vote ratios to make it easier/harder to get an article included based on score. I still would prefer a composite index, and am basing my approach on the [https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/place-health/php/svi/index.html CDC Social Vulnerability Index] (I use this extensively in my professional work, so it is the first thing I think of). I would recommend looking through how they handle these various variables, but essentially we could have multiple "themes" that could then feed into an overall index score. That said, if we develop multiple systems for calculating vitality might help inform separate things. My main goal is to get a system in place that can predict which articles are currently in the various levels with a moderate degree of accuracy, so that we have a metric that reflects what already exists that can help with consistency in sorting out level 5. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:17, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:I do it often. I think it is a good practice to list interwikis and page views, but as for requiring them - meh. We should have a bot that would add that information, and replace all links here with VA link template too. We also need a nice tool / gadget to add new listings for discussion. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:04, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::That would be a busy bot. The final "goal" of the project I've been working on is some sort of bot, perhaps we could make a bot for this project. Doing so is outside my current knowledge, but on my roadmap to learn, so I'd like to help (or at least watch) if you're planning to make one. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:Your point #2 would actually be my main request, and something I think we should keep in mind for both interwikis and pageviews. As long as we're comparing like to like, I don't expect picking the more popular article to guide us wrong often. My concern is that when those stats are cited between even subsections on a page (e.g. electronics vs. software in Tech), we're asking for wildly uneven coverage.

:Overall, I think it would be good if our official guidance even set aside metrics from the other criteria. While the other criteria are actual big-picture goals, the statistics are more advisory. I'm all for noting both interwikis and pageviews as possible metrics (not exclusive) to consider, again on the condition they're used to compare very similar topics.

:As for points #4 and #5, I agree they make sense most of the time, but a hard rule could kill off VA's ability to stimulate reorganization and new articles. Say someone realized an overarching concept didn't have an article yet or was split across several minor ones (it's uncommon but does happen). A hard rule on interwikis would prevent the new article from floating to its natural spot in the tree of knowledge, at least until someone added translations (possibly bad ones if they're just trying to satisfy the metric). I think we agreed to allow red-links for a very similar reason: a vital concept without an article arguably belongs on the list most of all so we can prioritize it. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:20, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::Not THAT uncommon imo. It is really easy to find stuff in my narrow domain that is "vital" but still missing an article completely. {{VA link|Technical geography}}, {{VA link|Quantitative geography}}, and {{VA link|Qualitative geography}} were all made by me relatively recently. There are many similar examples across disciplines, and it definitely is a pain to get stuff added here. Glad to see you active again! GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:01, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:::And vice versa. There are some vital concepts that are missing en wiki articles. It's not common but it does happen. A query for topics with many interwikis but no en interwiki would be interesting. For example, {{VA link|weapon}} is V3. I think that https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4154317 - weapon range - is arguably V5. No en wiki article yet (I reported this to MILHIST a while back). Just saying. Interwikis are a good measure but not perfect. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::I will note that point 4 really wouldn't be that hard to satisfy, since the Simple English Wikipedia exists, so even people who only speak English could bring their article's interwiki count up to 1 if they wanted. However, I agree that points 4 and 5 should be seen more as guidelines than as hard rules. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:59, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

We just got a proposal for {{VA link|Pope Francis}} to be moved to level 4, and recently got one to move {{VA link|Jimmy Carter}} after his death, which is what spurred this post.

Our biographies are a bit bloated at level 5, and I think we might be able to reign this in a bit with some minor tweaks. I think we have a lot of recency bias, particularly at level 4 and 5, when it comes to BLPs. One tweak we could make to address this, and my primary proposal, is limiting BLPs to level 5 until a set amount of time (5, 10, or 20 years) after the person is deceased. The purpose of the vital articles includes "to serve as a centralized watchlist of English Wikipedia's most important articles," and I think this is the main reason to include Biographies and BLPs, as in some cases a particular important Biography might be subject to a lot of vandalism, so worth watching. Keeping BLPs at level 5 can facilitate this function while avoiding the popularity contest involved with bumping them up to a higher level. This could also help with a cool down to avoid the urge to add someone who is in the news because of a recent death.

This is just my first idea for a solution, but want to get a discussion going as this is an ongoing problem. We could also insist on a "super majority" of 8 or more support and 80% support for moving a level 5 BLP or recently deceased to level 4.

;Support

1. As nom. I support 10 year cool down, but could go for 5 or 20. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:59, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
2. Going to put some support for the concept. We are naturally going to be biased towards more recent times. That is a universal bias that will be shared across every editor here, in a way that other biases, geographic, linguistic, etc. may not be. Putting some checks in to help provide additional consideration for that bias seems useful. CMD (talk) 14:43, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
3. :@Chipmunkdavis Seeking clarity at how far you want to go. Do you go as far as the nominator does, or only part way? _pbp 15:36, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
4. ::I don't think there is only a single set of ways this might come about, and I doubt there's actually much difference between 5, 10, or 20 years. CMD (talk) 16:04, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
5. :::@Chipmunkdavis How would you deal with the concerns raised below? _pbp 16:28, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
6. ::::I think they're tangential to the question of recency, as athletes, politicians, and musicians have existed throughout history. Taking the first, the marathon runner himself, Pheidippides, is just level 5. The clear exception is Neil Armstrong, who is first in an almost incomparable way. Very odd to see him listed as similar to Barack Obama and Margaret Thatcher actually, given their first-ness is limited to recent political entities. CMD (talk) 16:50, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose

1. Wow, another proposal I saw coming... Look, I get that caution and scrutiny should be exercised with the living and recently deceased, but there are too many cases where this rule is unnecessary and harmful. See my list below _pbp 03:06, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
2. Agreed, this is a bad take. While I understand the rationale of wanting to reduce recency bias, there seem to be very few who participate in this process anyhow. With an overwhelming list of examples I could list in addition to Purplebackpack89 below, I think we've done a fairly good job at this organizational project recently. From what I understand, it sounds like a fair few topics/people got added early on that may or may not have discussions and we're currently combing through, but to put limits on when someone is able to propose a topic for inclusion/upgrade is only going to further limit participation. If the topic/person isn't notable, I have full faith the process will vote against and vice versa for notable topics/people without putting these limiters on. GauchoDude (talk) 11:28, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
3. There are some people who simply are already Level 4 vital, and making us wait to add them would be problematic. I will note that Level 3 does already do this, and it makes sense there, but it doesn't work for Level 4 IMO. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:03, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
4. :Honestly, would like to see level 3 biographies mostly brought to level 4, level 4 brought to level 5, and level 5 mostly removed. We have far to many individuals listed on a list that is supposed to be the most "vital" articles of all time. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:54, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
5. No. Per pbp. --209.133.7.1 (talk) 00:17, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

;Neutral

;Discussion/Counter proposals

Consider this:

1. Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals in Munich 53 years ago. He is still alive
2. In 2002, Elizabeth II had been queen for 50 years and had already probably done enough for VA4. She would reign for another 20 years
3. Anyone who is vital for being the first to do something...Barack Obama, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Armstrong...they are vital the minute they've done that thing
4. Same with "most". Michael Phelps turns 40 this year. He's been VA4 vital since he broke Spitz's record for golds.
5. Jimmy Carter had a post-presidency of 43 years. Bill Clinton has a post-presidency of 24 years and counting
6. Many actors and musicians live decades beyond their most famous roles or compositions. Bob Dylan's most famous music came out in the 1960s. Should he be excluded from VA4 because he's still alive?
7. Conversely, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy died in office. If you have a 5-year-since death rule, in 1968 or 1870, it's 5 years since their death, but only 7-9 years since the START of their presidencies

_pbp 03:06, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:# I don't consider winning a lot of awards to be a mark of being vital. This isn't the greatest hits or top ten list. {{VA link|Mei-Po Kwan}} has [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vd-iK1cp0AIC&hl=en 46762 citations, and an i-10 index of 351], has been awarded the highest honor the American Association of Geographers gives, but she didn't warrant inclusion. Sports medals are not something that make a material impact on society, they are tidbits of trivia for lists.

:# A super majority over ride clause could account for that kind of thing. Still would want to wait on it, we exclude ALOT of monarchs from history at level 4. {{VA link|Leonnatus}}, {{VA link|Perdiccas}}, and {{VA link|Antipater}} were all generals involved in the division of the empire created under {{VA link|Alexander the Great}}, but we have mostly placed them as footnotes in history. In 2,000 years, do you really think {{VA link|Elizabeth II}} will be considered one of the top 10,000 most vital humans ever? The fact we have 21st century athletes, actors, and authors included but fail to include people like Alexander's generals, or scholars like {{VA link|Diodorus Siculus}} and {{VA link|Demades}}, kind of shows why this recency bias is a huge problem.

:# Things that seem "vital" in the moment might not be as vital in hindsight. Again, we could build in a "super majority" clause for this.

:# I don't consider winning sports awards to be a mark of being vital. This isn't the greatest hits or top ten list. We don't include many Roman Gladiators like {{VA link|Crixus}} or {{VA link|Flamma}} despite Flamma being described as "one of the most famous and successful of his time." Roman emperor {{VA link|Commodus}} is only level 5, and he had some scandalous time playing gladiator. Recency bias makes our current athletes look more important then they are, in 2,000 years, will Phelps be among the top 10,000 most important topics of all time, or be more like Flamma linked above?

:# I don't think {{VA link|Bill Clinton}} or {{VA link| Jimmy Carter}} should be level 4.

:# I consider {{VA link|Bob Dylan}}'s work more "vital" then his biography. But again, "super majority" clause.

:# Yep. Five or so years after their death, things would be a bit less "hot" in the media and we could see if they are "vital" with a bit of hindsight benefit. But again, "super majority" clause could be built in.

:GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:35, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:: What will be more replaceable by advanced AI in 2,000 years (and thus all human bios then will become irrelevant historically as AI will always outclass them), Michael Phelps (humans swimming competitively) or geography and cartography? In the obvious case then, how are unknown, niche people like Mei-Po Kwan (article created in 2022, main editor being you) expected to be remembered in 2,000 years? Are we Nostradamus? Why should a modern day popular encyclopedia be built for the interest of people in 2,000 years? Should we not have a well written article on Elizabeth II, a 20th century popular historic figure, just because her fame could dwindle by year 4,000? GuzzyG (talk) 15:48, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::The methods that we are using for GIS can be employed by an AI, but Kwan's work will be the theoretical foundation that it is built upon. If you have spatial data and humans that need to use that data, we will need geography/cartography to do it. I don't really know how "vital" a person is for swimming good now. Vitality is not something that should fade with time, a contemporary figure should be as vital as historic ones. If we don't include Alexander the Great's generals, we should not include people who had less of an impact then them, at least at level 4. Level 5 is a great place for putting those BLPs and contemporary articles though, which is my main point. Ultimately, I think we have FAR to many biographies at levels 3, 4, and 5, and think we should cut them all dramatically. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:53, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I don't know if Michael Phelps will be remembered in 2,000 years. Who knows if in 2,000 years, or even 20, if somebody earns more medals than he has. But, right now, he should be listed even if only a dozen athletes are.

::::I'm rather confident Queen Elizabeth II will still be remembered 2,000 years out. {{VA link|Boudica}} and {{VA link|Julia Domna}} are.

::::I'm also rather confident that Mei-Po Kwan will NOT be remembered 2,000 years out. She is widely known and cited within the community of geographical research but has essentially no renown at all outside of that community. And so to with most social scientists and historians.

::::Furthermore, I agree with Guzzy that making the test for VA4 be notability for thousands of years isn't a good approach. I'm more OK with vitality being revisited, and articles added and removed, every FEW years.

::::I'm also rather concerned that you're bringing up previously defeated proposals, such as Kwan not being promoted to VA4, and also that you're again making a radical bio-related proposal after several similar proposals were defeated. Is this an "end run"? _pbp 17:29, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::End run? Not sure what you mean by that. I've made no secret that I don't think that biographies are not particularly vital, and don't know why that would be concerning for you. I bring Kwan up because I don't believe we are consistent with any of our lists. I don't believe athletes are vital, if we list Golf players, certainly scientists should be listed across disciplines. If we don't list a contemporary scientist who is among the most awarded and influential in their discipline, why would we include people who play games good? I don't think playing a sport makes you impact society, unless we count the carbon footprint destroying the planet. At this point with Steve Irwin likely to fail, I think we can safely remove almost all athletes from level 4, and think some at level 5 could be kept for the watchlist function. Will continue to vote based on this view, and continue to use that as my guiding philosophy for nominations.

:::::I don't think Queen Elizabeth II is on the same level as {{VA link|Boudica}}. I don't think Michael Phelps matters, this isn't the Guinness book of World Records or Top Tenz greatest. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:42, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::I agree. The current proportion of biographies at VA3 is about where I'd like VA4 to be at, and the current proportion at VA4 is what I'd like to bring VA5 down to. Unfortunately, getting bios removed is much more difficult than getting them added. I nominated one guy for removal at VA3 but it is currently stalling at 1-1, and several of my recent VA4 proposals have garnered some opposition. However, in the long run, I would like to get the number of biographies down. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:30, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::On a related note, while I haven't taken an in-depth look at VA3 & VA4 histories, I half-expect their selections to have been pretty poor long ago and, as important topics are swapped in and unimportant ones out, for the lower levels to become somewhat more like what their immediately higher levels used to be in the past in terms of inclusion threshold.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 07:30, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::What is your deal? I have been lurking here for quite a while, and I have repeatedly seen you make some extremely radical, and frankly very boneheaded, proposals. Considering that you brought up Mei-Po Kwan, a woman who you tried promoting her to Level 4 despite only having two interwikis, to smack-talk athletes YET AGAIN, I too can't help but wonder your exact end goal here. Have you decided that, since your attempt to increase the number of geographers to more than five physical ones failed hard, you're going to go back to your other main goal of reducing the number of sport figures to just 25 people, none of them listed higher than level 5? Isn't it enough that there's now a consensus on here to cut the number of sportspeople listed? 209.133.7.1 (talk) 02:03, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Something I've been thinking about of late is having a requirement for VAs that they must, well, be topics that an article can be written about. Meaning...

1. That they not be DICDEFS, COATRACKS, or other violations of what articles are not
2. That they not be so narrow to the point that very little could be written about them
3. That they not be so broad that it would be impossible to write a single succinct article
4. That reliable sources about them exist

_pbp 20:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

;Support

1. _pbp 20:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose

1. Oppose as written, since WP:DICDEF can be highly subjective, particularly for certain very broad concepts. BD2412 T 23:19, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
2. Strong oppose These are obviously important. But they are in fact important to every article, vital or not. That is why there is the Articles for Deletion process, which handles exactly these problems except "being so broad so as to be impossible to summarize in one article", which to be honest, I don't think is true of anything at all. Trying to implement a rule like this would just clone AfD to here, but badly. We have long-established regulations on AfD for a reason. Mrfoogles (talk) 02:06, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

;Discussion

;Support

1. _pbp 20:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose

1. Strong oppose per my comment above. Mrfoogles (talk) 02:06, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

;Discussion

I'm not sure I understand the intent here. Is there an example of a current or proposed vital article that is, in fact, too narrow to write much about? BD2412 T 23:22, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

;Support

1. _pbp 20:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose

1. Oppose Proposal C, as very broad articles can help introduce readers to various smaller topics and how they connect to each other. I don't know how this proposal can be enforced anyways. Maybe if you can provide an example? PrimalMustelid (talk) 21:46, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
2. Oppose per PrimalMustelid. WP:BROADCONCEPT articles are often some of our most vital topics. BD2412 T 23:21, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
3. Oppose This would get rid of the first two levels entirely, as well as much of the third. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:25, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
4. :@QuicoleJR: See above where [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles#Of_what_point_are_levels_1_and_2?| I question the point of Levels 1 and 2]. I'm fundamentally concerned that there exist concepts that are obviously important but stand zero chance of ever getting a properly-sized article. _pbp 15:45, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
5. ::{{ping|Purplebackpack89}} I'd be inclined to agree with you, if it weren't for the fact that many of these articles have reached GA or FA. {{VA link|Mind}}, {{VA link|Logic}}, {{VA link|Philosophy}}, {{VA link|Communication}}, and {{VA link|Existence}} are all FAs. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:51, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
6. Strong oppose per my comment above. Mrfoogles (talk) 02:06, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
7. Strong oppose per everyone else. JpTheNotSoSuperior (talk) 01:32, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

;Discussion

• Isn't this just describing WP:VITAL1? CMD (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

;Support

1. _pbp 20:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

;Oppose

1. Strong oppose per my comment above. Mrfoogles (talk) 02:06, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

;Discussion

1. Comment on all: Seems like an article that violates these proposals should be taken up on Article's for Deletion. I'm not sure I understand the reason, did I miss something GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:44, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
2. :Agreed. I get the point of these proposals (to make sure vital articles are actually articles), but if they weren't articles, wouldn't they just get AfD'd? Isn't that the entire point of AfD? It's not like they have special protection just because they're vital articles. Hell, Media (communication) was a vital article when it got merged. They'd just go through the normal process despite being vital, and we just remove them later. JpTheNotSoSuperior (talk) 01:35, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Is it canvassing to mention that I nominated an article for vitality on its talk page? Some proposals take months before they pass, and this would speed it up. A talk page notification would look something like:

"I nominated Like this one for vitality. Its nomination can be found here"

Thanks. -1ctinus📝🗨 13:12, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:I think it's fine. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 15:34, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:I wonder about notifying the relevant wikiproject(s) instead. Page watchers of a particular article are, I think, more likely to think it's important (although I dunno by how much in reality); Wikiproject talk page participants would be a wider audience both in opinions and quantity. (Theoretically there however could then, worst case scenario, be an influx of people from an entire field seeking to disproportionately expand its representation, but quotas in turn would help make that more difficult, and this could be balanced by notifying wikiprojects whose articles are being removed.)--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 07:28, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

:I also think it's fine. I would say alerts and/or notifications to both the article talk page and relevant WikiProjects, assuming the statement has no bias, makes a lot of sense. While we are regulars to this project, I would be there are many out there that have no idea this even is a thing. GauchoDude (talk) 12:29, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

:Also think it's fine. Article talk pages are good places to find someone interested in the article. People who come from the talk may agree or disagree that it's vital. Mrfoogles (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Over the past few months, we have had many sporadic, de-centralized discussions spread across several separate proposals about our own personal opinions on whether or not biographies belong on the vital articles list. And if so, how many per level. I and a couple other editors agree at this point that these discussions are so frequent, yet so decentralized and repeated, that it is likely no longer helpful for working towards a specific goal. There is only so much that making removal proposals or quota changes whenever we feel like it can do, and I feel that most of us are on completely different pages. As a result, I and some others believe that a proper, central discussion (which this will be) may be in order. Especially since we're starting to stray more into the idea of major quota re-allocations that could fundamentally change vital articles as a whole (e.g. {{ping|GuzzyG}}'s proposal to effectively rebuild the entire vital biographies list from the ground up. For the record, the discussion just linked is where the idea for a central discussion came up).

I hope that most of the active participants at this project (or at least, the ones that usually vote in discussions related to people) participate in this discussion so that we can work towards a proper goal on how to handle biographies. From what I have been able to tell, the most common debates (and probably what could be the starting point here) are how many biographies each level should have, if biographies belong at V3 at all, and if pop-culture figures (e.g. sports players) can reasonably be considered vital. Might be missing something here but these seem to be the most common points of discussion.

I do want to clarify that this is not a proposal where voting will occur as of right now, at least. If someone wants to pitch a proposal after discussions take place so that we can get a clear vote consensus on certain topics that may be discussed here, then they are free to do so either in a sub-header of this discussion or as a fully separate topic (preferably the former so that we can keep this centralized and work towards a consensus), but I want this to just be a discussion where we can agree to work towards a goal.

Courtesy pinging several editors that are active in discussions related to biographies: {{ping|GeogSage}}, GuzzyG (pinged above), {{ping|Purplebackpack89}}, {{ping|QuicoleJR}}, {{ping|Thi}}, {{ping|LaukkuTheGreit}}, {{ping|GauchoDude}}, {{ping|J947}}, {{ping|Aurangzebra}}, {{ping|Moscow Connection}}, {{ping|Piotrus}}, {{ping|TonyTheTiger}}. Sorry if I missed anyone, these just seem to be the most active when it comes to biography proposals. I also apologize for the mass ping in general and if this is formatted weirdly or abrupt, I just think a proper discussion on this is necessary. λ NegativeMP1 06:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

: To start off by giving my own two cents on the matter, I think that biographies can be included at Level 3, but they would have to be figures that are essential towards the coverage of global history in general (as in, people like {{VA link|Jesus}}, I don't think there would really be any contention on listing people like him at Level-3 above 95% of other biographies). We could bump down the majority of other figures, but I think people like Jesus are essential. With that being said, we also do need to keep in mind that vital articles is meant to mimic a traditional encyclopedia, and by extension, be the English Wikipedias "adaptation" of sorts of meta:List of articles every Wikipedia should have. And that includes a lot of biographies. Likewise, a traditional encyclopedia would include a lot of biographies on very important people. Emphasis on the important aspect though—we should definitely do a massive purge of V4 and V5 against pop-culture figures and restrict it entire to people that are actually influential to a specific field or have truly exceptional popularity that is world-wide. I would also generally count sports figures that aren't among the best of their respective sport to be pop-culture figures, and even the ones that are among the best I think could all be bumped down to Level-5 in the event of a total vital biographies overhaul. But I think cutting back on sports figures is one of the few things the majority of this project has come to an agreement on. λ NegativeMP1 06:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:: If there is level 3 bios with Jesus, there has to be 10 and that should be Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Karl Marx, Isaac Newton, The Buddha, Muhammad, Archimedes and William Shakespeare (One specifically for English wikipedia). It's just probably not worth it. Christianity itself is enough. Countries and cities should be covered more thoroughly instead (like it's odd Athens is not listed). I did not mention a exact proposal, but i think it'd be much easier to have no biographies at level 3, 1,000 at 4 and 5,000 at 5, it would cut down confusion significantly. At 4 and 5 arts/entertainment and sports should be listed together and get a bit of a boost in return for the loss of biographies though. I agree on the cut down of popular figures, but there has to be concern between popular but inane regular figures like Jimmy Kimmel and ones that are popular like Kim Kardashian, MrBeast, Jenna Jameson, Hulk Hogan and Ted Bundy; which are all widely known bios with 10s of millions of views but come from fields seen as negative, despite being stand out recognizable names. These are the ones i'd be against cutting. But you will never cut the level 5 list down properly on quickly done, uninformed nominations (Gaelic football having no people now despite being more popular in Ireland than hurling etc). I can create a mockup of any sports/entertainment list to visually see it, if needed. Here's my ideal Entertainment/Sports section on the current level 4 list, with each cut down to 50 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GuzzyG/Sandbox_15] GuzzyG (talk) 07:22, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Alright, I can agree with the V3 biographies thing - it's probably not worth bothering with if we try to rework biographical coverage here. We could theoretically cut them entirely from that level I guess but that would definitely require a whole different proposal. And by popular figures, I wouldn't really target ones that have global fan bases that even include the average person. See my examples of Cristiano Ronaldo and Taylor Swift below. I could consider MrBeast to be in that department, too, given that his fanbase includes hundreds of millions. λ NegativeMP1 08:03, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:: {{tq|A massive purge of V4 and V5 against pop-culture figures}}. – I would oppose this. As you've said yourself, biographies are an essential part of an encyclopedia.
Actually, I initially came here to add some pop-culture figures. And I've been watching with amazement as you add things like "Door knob" or some vague non-articles that no one is going to read anyway. Why do his? Biographies are always in demand at bookshops and libraries. I'm sure most people come to Wikipedia to read about some celebrity.
And biographies are rather straightforward to write, too. So they are usually better quality than something like "{{VA link|Handrail}}" or "{{VA link|Short hair}}". Just ask yourself, is the article titled "{{VA link|Handrail}}" something you would like to show the world? No, it isn't. "{{VA link|Billie Eilish}}" is. And there are many nice articles on lesser celebrities too. I think we should actually add more people.
{{tq|Restrict it entire to people that are actually influential to a specific field or have truly exceptional popularity that is world-wide}} – Aren't pop-culture icons "actually influential to a specific field" and have "truly exceptional popularity"? They are {{tq|pop}} icons after all, and they are icons for a reason. --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:40, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I didn't support adding door knob or handrail? Or short hair? There isn't even a door knob article (the page redirects)? I'm not sure why you list these examples as if I supported listing them and then word it like "I've been watching with amazement as you add things [...]". What things? I didn't suggest adding those things or even support them. The only hair related things I believe I supported adding was Bangs, but that's because that's a concept present in a lot of hairstyles to the point where I think bangs warrant being listed in proper coverage of that department.

:::And no, I do not think most people come to Wikipedia to read up on a biography. A sizable amount, sure. But most? I don't think so. And by truly exceptional global popularity, I mean people that literally everyone knows and have massive fanbases. People on the level of {{VA link|Taylor Swift}} or {{VA link|Cristiano Ronaldo}}. Billie Eilish is an irrelevant figure outside of the west. Ronaldo and Swift have a fanbase spanning the entire world. I wouldn't consider them to be on the same level. Plus, Eilish is pure recentism. The other two are also pretty recent but they've basically solidified themselves in history with their level of popularity and influence. Eilish barely been relevant for half a decade. And you want more people like her listed? You would consider them to be among the 50,000 or 10,000 most important topics of all time? λ NegativeMP1 07:57, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I am in agreement with nearly most, to an extent. I agree with {{U|Moscow Connection}} that a massive V4 and V5 bio purge is likely not the answer. I can also see, on the other hand, that biographies to an extent are bloated. I don't see any issue, to be quite frank, with how we are attacking it now. Is it a slow process? Sure, but I'd rather we slowly be trying to get it correct vs. making big moves for moves' sake. GauchoDude (talk) 12:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I would agree with that. I think some sizable cuts are needed, but I wouldn't support a "blow it up and start over" strategy. I'd rather stick with the current strategy of cutting the weakest entries until we are at have reached the goal, with that goal being 10-15% at VA4 and 20% at VA5. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::While I understand goals are important, especially SMART criteria, I don't think we should be pushing towards any certain numerical total or percentage IMO. I think we already see this now with some categories under "quota" and would probably accept any proposal at all to fill space whereas others are "above" and cuts/adds are much more ruthless for no reason other than some hypothetical number someone pulled out of thin air. On the flip side, I can certainly see there would be logistical complications, especially when comparing random things like "well alligator is a Level 4 and so is sausage and graph theory and James Bond" where subsections would be important.

:::::I don't know if, in effect, saying "well we can only take X people despite how overwhelmingly influential they are because we need to arbitrarily find more random plants and fungi because that's what the Level 5 quotas say" is helpful. And I say that as someone who things we likely have people bloat. GauchoDude (talk) 13:13, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::I'd say that that's fair, and I don't think that we should stick too hard to these goals. I simply think that these would ideally be the numbers we reach. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:40, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::::My concern wasn't about time constraints—Wikipedia has no deadline. And it would be dumb to try and "complete" the vital articles process because, as pbp said below, there will be several movies released, several countries leaderships will change, and so on and so forth. My concern was we all share our opinions on how to handle biographies and how we will pursue the cuts in completely different areas and it's hard to gather a rough idea of an area to focus on. If that makes any sense. Also, I suppose a V4-V5 purge wasn't the right way to word it. But I don't think that we need 30.2% of V5 to be biographies and we could probably cut it to something like 20%. I think that would roughly be about 5,000~ quota removed from biographies.

::::I guess that does, however, leave the question of what we would do with 5,000 spare quota slots that isn't just adding DICDEF concepts. λ NegativeMP1 16:12, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::My thoughts exactly. If we take a slow and steady approach, 10 here, 25 there, and start a reallocation process that way, we can see which areas may really need them or which areas might already be at a level that makes sense. I have no idea if other areas even need the "quota spots" that are supposedly bloating up in biographies anyhow. At level 5 do we really need more plants? Do we really need more physics? More health? Who knows, but they're under right now so my assumption is probably not? Alternatively, maybe there are sections that do need slightly more until we find a balance, like everyday life or politics?

:::::While viewing through the Level 5 lens, everyone is so fixated on the number of sports figures (1,150 of its 1,100 quota), but there are over 2,000 of writers, artists, entertainers, and politicians each. If we truly wanted to tackle biography bloat, it seems like we'd want review the largest sections first for greatest impact. GauchoDude (talk) 18:20, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Just reading through this stuff now, but want to reply to @NegativeMP1 and this with one example of a gap. One reason I got interested in VA was because the {{VA link|WHO Model List of Essential Medicines}} did not have all the essential medicines listed. There needs to be around 591 slots in medicine to cover the basic portion of the list (some are already included, but it's haphazard at best). I got some added like {{VA link|Gabapentin}} last year, but it is woefully incomplete. In terms of "Vital" articles, health is tremendously under represented, especially when our articles involving medicine likely need both a lot of attention and a lot of people watching for misinformation, as a bad article can cause real damage. Early on, I saw that adding all the medications deemed essential on the UN list would not be possible without a massive overhaul of the project, which is one reason I started looking for dramatic cuts in the first place. Within health, this is one major topic, however there are several areas like this across the various subsections. We don't cover common supplements people take, and the number of {{VA link|Medicinal plants}} we cover is also lacking. In terms of plants, we're missing many that have uses and huge cultural significance, such as {{VA link|Dalbergia melanoxylon}}, {{VA link|Pink ivory}}, {{VA link|Ebony}}, {{VA link|Sandalwood}} and {{VA link|Agarwood}}. We do list lots of plants common in the west, like {{VA link|Oak}}, which shows a bit of our Western Bias creeping into the botanical plants we cover. We have huge blind spots in statistics, and are missing elementary concepts, for example I just nominated {{VA link|Analysis}} for example recently, and the voting is still open on it. The fact we have {{VA link|Taylor Swift}} at level 4, but somehow no one thought to add analysis, demonstrates some of the problems with the list. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:26, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::{{tq|While viewing through the Level 5 lens, everyone is so fixated on the number of sports figures (1,150 of its 1,100 quota), but there are over 2,000 of writers, artists, entertainers, and politicians each.}}
– I think "writers, artists, entertainers" have a more lasting impact than sportsmen. Like, I came here some time ago to add some singers and film directors. Those singers and film directors are still very relevant today. It is hard to imagine that their songs and films will be forgotten any time soon. (As for politicians, it is hard to evaluate their vitality. Some are relevant only for history books. But history is taught at school, so...) --Moscow Connection (talk) 04:12, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Agreed, singers, authors, artists, etc. impact future singers, authors, and artists. Furthermore, creative works inspire engineering, science, and politics, and work their way into the popular consciousness in ways that are foundational to society and education. Individual athletes are not likely to have that level of impact. I can only name a few, like {{VA link|Lance Armstrong}}, who have impacted society in a way approaching moderately popular authors. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:21, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::"singers, authors, artists, etc. impact future singers, authors, and artists." Because former sports people don't influence future sports people? I understand I'm likely coming from a bit of a place of bias, but this is an incredibly lol take.

::::::::On the other hand, I'd argue you're greatly overestimating "singers, authors, artists, etc." and wildly underestimating sports people because y'all just don't like it. And that's fine. This is a bit of a popularity contest, as someone stated earlier.

::::::::To provide a bit of a counterbalance, and I don't mean this negatively in any way, I have very little awareness about some of these other "more influential" biographies. If someone's trying to make the argument that Abu Nuwas (Level 4 writer picked at random) is more influential and well known to society than Magic Johnson (Level 4 basketball player currently undergoing removal review), respectfully this project is very, very off-mark, and we likely have some very strong anti-sports bias at play.

::::::::(And I know I responded directly to you, GeogSage, but this is directed towards the wider group). GauchoDude (talk) 11:38, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::As someone who may be peripheral to the wider group, I think that was an unfortunate comparison to make. Abu Nawas is a figure from 1000 years ago whose influence persists throughout a wide area of the world (and space, apparently) to this day. They are undoubtedly more influential than Magic Johnson, if only because Magic Johnson hasn't had nearly as much time. CMD (talk) 11:51, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::The purpose wasn't to cherry pick someone who I thought would definitively be better/worse, it was to be at random for comparison's sake. I can see he has many interwikis, albeit none at a featured status. He's clearly someone out of my sphere of knowledge, but his lede gives no mention as to importance to Level 5, let alone Level 4.

::::::::::This is not to pick on him specifically, but a specialist in "Arabic poetry" (itself in total not even Vital-listed) feels no different than some regionally-important sport(s figure). His legacy section mentions being influential in wine poetry (which seemingly doesn't have an article, or maybe isn't linked?), being one of a number of people involved with "Arabic riddles" (also not Vital in totality), Tardiyya/Hunting poetry (which "Tardiyya" is only mentioned in all of en.wiki on his page unless it's spelled wrong), and having some things named after him.

::::::::::It would be cute to have this chat at Abū Nuwās Street in Baghdad or maybe [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-11-20-me-263-story.html Magic Johnson park] if that's how we're adjudicating. In any event, I'm not advocating for Nuwas' demotion, and to be quite honest I'm going to let people that have knowledge and experience in that area make that determination.

::::::::::My point is, and remains, if we're looking to cut biographies for whatever reason, which I'm not sure is ideal, logically it would make sense to look at the biggest categories first. I'm not saying there isn't sports biography bloat, there absolutely is, it absolutely should be cut, and I've certainly voted in favor of it on many occasions and will continue to do so, but to target this already small subsection of a subsection feels misguided and downright maliciously targeted when we're much more likely to have bloat in the obviously larger areas. GauchoDude (talk) 12:57, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::He's in Arabian Nights, and his influence has persisted for 1000 years. There are sports people with similar influence, but I can't really construe Magic Johnson to be one of them. CMD (talk) 13:02, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::: It looks like Abu Nuwas hasn't been translated to English much (or to Russian, for that matter). So it's hard for us to evaluate his "vitality". --Moscow Connection (talk) 14:18, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::I'm not sure what that's supposed to imply. List of One Thousand and One Nights characters lists 33 real people in that story, one of which doesn't even have an article, and only ~10 or so listed in any Vital capacity like Moses and other rulers/leaders of the time. From what I understand and via Google, and again I feel like this is turning into a Nuwas debate which it's not, he's a minor figure in the stories. GauchoDude (talk) 14:30, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::It's an indicator of his being well known, being present in a very famous collection of stories (it's somewhat a collection of minor figures). You posted "If someone's trying to make the argument that Abu Nuwas (Level 4 writer picked at random) is more influential and well known to society than Magic Johnson (Level 4 basketball player currently undergoing removal review), respectfully this project is very, very off-mark, and we likely have some very strong anti-sports bias at play." It was a very odd claim, as is the idea that someone who has not been translated into English (although he has) affects vitality consideration. (How does one translate a sports performance into English?) I haven't read through the Magic Johnson discussion, but the example given seems a good argument for the removal. CMD (talk) 14:39, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::@GauchoDude, @Chipmunkdavis, @Moscow Connection: Feels like we've gone off on an extended tangent here. I gather this is supposed to be a GENERAL discussion, not a SPECIFIC obe _pbp 14:45, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::Agreed, I'm not planning to talk more to it. My point being there are much larger biography categories that, if we're truly looking to tackle bloat, we should look at first from a sheer numerical standpoint. I will oppose any attempt at a large-scale reduction in the sports figures category at Level 5 (which doesn't even exist at Level 4 as it's just a People category) without first undergoing a review of the larger biography categories. GauchoDude (talk) 14:51, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::Other then sports betting, gluttonous consumption of finite resources, and carbon footprint, most athletes don't have a lasting impact on society as a whole. Most don't even impact how their game is played. Comparing a contemporary athlete to a literary figure remembered from 1,000 years ago that has a section titled "Legacy" which includes inventing a literary form, establishing "two Arabic genres," and has been commemorated for thousands of years seems a bit odd. I don't think there are many athletes that come close to his level of impact on society at large, which is my point in targeting athletes. They don't have the same level of impact on society as writers, artists, military leaders, religious figures, or scientists. Consider that my nomination to get {{VA link|John Snow}}, the founder of modern {{VA link|epidemiology}}, and leader in the development of {{VA link|Anesthesia}} and medical hygiene, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/4/Archive_79 failed] to failed to swap for {{VA link|Jack Nicklaus}}, a professional golfer and course designer. You were one who voted against that, so you should be aware. The level of impact on society John Snow had is incomparable to any athlete we have listed, honestly that failure and a few others have made me lose a lot of faith/respect for the Vital articles project as a whole. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:50, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::{{ping|GeogSage}} You. Lost. That. Vote. You lost on that geographer with the two interwikis. You proposed MARTIN LUTHER and ABRAHAM LINCOLN for removal from VA3; lost those as well, as did removing all the musicians from VA3. I'm really bothered that you keep bringing up past votes that you lost. I'm especially bothered that sometimes you've proposed large versions of votes you lost (and, yes, this general discussion DOES strike me that way). If John Snow wasn't swapped for Jack Nicklaus, what makes you think there's appetite for completely nuking sports figures? If Martin Luther and Abraham Lincoln weren't removed from VA3, what makes you think there's an appetite for nuking politicians and religious figures? _pbp 17:17, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::::Lol it isn't a contest win winning/losing, and the fact that it didn't pass doesn't make me change my mind about what I consider vital. In terms of "losing," I think that the loser is Wikipedia as a whole when it comes to how this project disproportionately lists biographies and sports figures. When sports displaces science, we all lose. That said, I'm trying to build out a consistent metric for what should be vital, and what should not be, and I point to past votes that I believe are inconsistent. Proposals I make are generally data points in an analysis, namely I am trying to find people/topics based on some data points, and seeing how the votes go. On that note there has been a lot of work towards removing sports figures, and I'm proud to have been part of those quota shifts and removals. I will continue to support efforts to "completely" nuke the sports figures (and to a lesser extend, biographies as a whole) on the list. I think that there is a growing "appetite" to remove large amounts of our biographies to re-balance the list, as I believe this conversation shows. I won't shut up just because some of my proposals failed, even if that bothers you. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:48, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::I guess I'll be the lightning rod here since I have a free day and I'm active, but this is valid and I agree with you here. As you also know, my vote shows I was one of the few in favor of adding Snow. I don't particularly enjoy swaps, especially when topics are fairly different in background, they're not apples to apples comparisons. I think I would be in favor of completely banning swaps unless coming from the same subcategory / comparison angle, but that could cause logistical logjams down the road. GauchoDude (talk) 17:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::::From a purely practical standpoint, swaps are necessary when the list gets full. Across categories, it is necessary to find the "least vital" article to propose a swap, and that article might not be within the category the proposed add is in, again for practical reasons. The Logistical logjam is not down the road, at levels 1, 2, 3 and 4, that is the reality as those categories are full, and several sections of level 5 are also full. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:52, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:As for my two cents, I think we could stand to bring Level 3 down to 100 biographies max (10%) and I'd be willing to go lower, Level 4 should ideally also go down to either 10% or 15%, and I'd put Level 5 at about 20% for biographies. We currently overrepresent bios at Levels 4 and 5, and I've been working on cuts. I'd rather list more books, movies, games, etc. at these levels, not to mention basic topics like Kindness and Pessimism, than list some random writer or ball-thrower who has faded into obscurity. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:44, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::I'd could be okay with this. At level 20, looking at numbers, I think we can make an argument for the community watch function of the list being important for biographies. That said, cutting it by 5,000 would be difficult as it grows faster then we can hack away at it. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:29, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:: {{tq|Than list some random writer or ball-thrower who has faded into obscurity.}}
– I don't agree with the notion that we list some "random writers" who have "faded into obscurity". As I've said above (see my reply to {{u|GauchoDude}}), entertainers have a lasting impact. Their books, films, songs will still be available many years from now. As for sportsmen, yes, maybe they will live only in old footage.
(You can probably argue if a writer, especially a philosopher, can be considered an entertainer.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 04:12, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::My comment was not supposed to be a comment on the importance of writers as a category, just a comment on a few current listings that have already been nominated for removal. Like I said above, I'd simply rather give some of these quota slots to the works themselves, rather than the people who created them. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

I have about six things:

1. I'm going to push back a bit here: I do not see a need for reduction in the number of bios.  In particular, I would like bios to continue to be listed at VA3, and closer to the current number of bios than just 10.  The last time this came up, I tried doing a just 10 and no selection of 10 left me satisfied. 
2. I agree with Moscow above that we seem to be focusing on adding the wrong kind of things: concepts that are so narrow to be little more than DICDEFs, concepts that are so broad that it would be impossible to distill them to a single article, or concepts that are COATRACKs that link several disparate concepts (frequently concepts with articles themselves, sometimes concepts with VITAL articles themselves) that share use of a common word or phrase.  You can see my proposals and pontification on those topics above, such as where I gave up on VA1 and VA2.
3. I'm also concerned about the "playing God" aspect here: saying we want few, if any, bios comes off as thinking we know more about creating encyclopedias than the people at Encyclopedia Britannica and other long-running encyclopedias who have been including bios for literally centuries
4. On the one hand, I do support significant reductions in sports and entertainment figures.  On the other hand, we should consider interwikis a lot and pageviews at least a little.  Of what point is writing an article no one will read?
5. On the "blow it all up and start over", I could support that on sports and entertainment, but not in the other aspects of biography. 
6. One of the other things that's been thrown around in previous discussions is "will it be notable in 2,000 years?".  I'm not sure that necessarily needs to be the criteria, nor am I sure the people who throw that around really DO know what will be (For example, I'm certain Elizabeth II will still be in history books 2,000 years from now).  While we don't necessarily want people whose notability will fade within the next 10 years, we also need to be at peace that in 10 years, there will be several Olympics, many films will come out, and most of the nations of the world will have a change in government, and, as such, there WILL be fluidity in the list. _pbp 14:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::* {{tq|I'm certain Elizabeth II will still be in history books 2,000 years from now).}}
– With all due respect to her, what did she do that changed the world? I think she was just a symbol of "good old England", someone you can look up to. (Which is a good thing considering how UK and EU politicians are shallow nowadays. But still, what did she do exactly?) --Moscow Connection (talk) 04:30, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::*:@Moscow Connection What about some of my broader points though? _pbp 15:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

• {{ping|NegativeMP1}} I think there's one very important nuance that you missed prior to starting this: that, while the topic of significantly reducing biographies has been mentioned from time to time, the status quo ante has largely held.
• At VA3, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/3/Archive_2 there was a proposal to remove all six musicians]. It failed.
• In January, there was [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5/Archive_21#Change_quota_on_Sports_figures a proposal to limit sports figures to 500]; only one participant was willing to go lower than 900 (four supported 900, seven supported 1100) and two were unwilling to low the quota at all

I could probably find other examples, but those two come to mind right away. I'm also frustrated that this discussion may be a "do-over" or "end run" around previous consensuses that went the other way. _pbp 17:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:"I'm also frustrated that this discussion may be a "do-over" or "end run" around previous consensuses that went the other way."

:I've recently joined, sorta, or at least have done more participation, and this feels fairly accurate. GauchoDude (talk) 17:28, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:I didn't start this proposal, but it isn't some vast conspiracy. The Limit on Sports figures had several options and we did ultimately lower the quota, I view that as a success. I don't feel bound by previous votes, and I do not feel the need to avoid participating in a proposal, or proposing something similar, because of previous votes. I don't consider the proposal to reduce the quota of athletes to have failed just because the largest proposed cut did not pass, and don't see any reason to avoid continuing to discuss the topic. Per the project guidelines: {{Quote|"There is currently no hard limit to how soon a failed proposal can be retried, and articles can occasionally see major swings in coverage or notability. However, editors are strongly discouraged from knowingly repeating a recent proposal (active within the past 6 months is a good rule-of-thumb). If someone does happen to repeat a proposal, assume good faith in the absence of disruptive behavior and include a link to the previous discussion from the archives."}}

:I believe that the "status quo" of this project is extremely change resistant and conservative, but that it is starting to shift as we become more desperate for space in various categories. It feels like you're trying to impose "a moratorium on proposals for change," based on loosely related proposals, which is a Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling tactic. I don't appreciate your continued use of terms like "end run" or "do-over" to discredit proposals you disagree with, they feel like accusation of impropriety. Consensus can change, but we can't know if that consensus has changed unless we have the discussions. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::(Same anonymous user from yesterday.) You have repeatedly pushed for drastic cuts since you been here, and you're currently proposing to remove anyone who didn't die over ten years ago from Level 4. You have also constantly stated [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AVital_articles&diff=1288128677&oldid=1288118290 over] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles&diff=next&oldid=1288134148 over] again that other than a handful of athletes (and only at a level 5 even then) you find the idea that a sportsperson can be considered vital physically repulsive. Again, I don't blame pbp for thinking you have ulterior motives. Bluevestman (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::What is my "ulterior motive" exactly? My motivation is trimming athletes and biographies to make room for other articles, which I've stated clearly. My opinion is what it is, and I will propose things, vote, and discuss with that opinion in mind. I don't consider athletes vital, and personally consider sports a drain on resources. Think of the sport {{VA link|Competitive eating}} (or whatever sport you find lame if you like that one). Generally I value all sports at the same level, and group all athletes in the same category of vitalness regardless of their sport. Looking at the list from my POV, we might as well have 1,000 competitive eaters, which is why I'd rather shift that quota to things like items on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. I push to trim articles in many other sections as well (Just trimmed numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 100, and 1000 based on my proposal, all of which I view as more vital then an athlete bio), athletes and biographies just get the most push back. I don't appreciate accusations of impropriety. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Are you seriously telling me that you find Pelé (universally held to be the greatest player in the history of the most popular sport on the planet) to be just barely more vital than Joey Chestnut? Bluevestman (talk) 22:53, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::I don't care about either of these people, and think that a moderately influential author or scientist has a much greater impact on society as a whole then the most successful athlete of all time, yes. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 00:58, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::See, this is what so infuriating about you: your seething, almost psychotic hatred towards sports, to the point where you can't stand that this project has some sports figures listed on here. As someone whose annual sports consumption is entirely limited to the Super Bowl (and only for the halftime show), the idea that someone can't fathom the idea that people can be important is completely alien to me. Seriously, why do you not have the same attitude towards actors? They are literally in the same boat as athletes: a career that significantly blew up thanks to mass media. But no, it's the sports people who are not only not important, but an active drain to society.

::::::I am fully aware that as someone who just registered today, I am not even remotely in the position to say this, but I got to be blunt: you finding Pelé to have the same vitality as a hot dog eater (i.e. none) should disqualify you from participating in this project. Bluevestman (talk) 03:10, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::{{reply to|Bluevestman}} Hi, I can see you've just registered. (Welcome to Wikipedia!) You should be careful with your wording. There are some rules on Wikipedia against saying things that may offend people. (GeogSage doesn't look like someone who may get offended and call the admins on you. But in the future, be more careful.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 03:35, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Please read Wikipedia:WikiBullying, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, and Wikipedia:Civility and strike through the parts of your comment that you don't think meet these guidelines. As @Moscow Connection said, I really don't like dealing with admins on issues and won't call them unless something really crazy happens (like someone making actionable death threats or vandalism making crazy slurs). I worked in food service for a bit, I'm used to much harsher treatment then would pass on Wikipedia. However, I think you should strike through some of the harsher areas of this comment in case an admin does lurk these pages and decide to act without my input.

:::::::That said, I believe you might be projecting an image onto me that might not be the reality, text fails to convey tone across on keyboards. I'm concerned with freeing up space for these new nominations, most of which are not mine, and am looking through the lists to find room. Removing articles from the vital project isn't calling for their deletion, I'm perfectly fine with the existence of articles on sports and athletes in main space. However, in Vital article space, like funding for research and land for endemic species, we have finite space for new nominations (50,000 overall, 10,000 at level 4, etc.), yet they continue to roll in. I don't care about sports, I do consider them a waste of resources, and do believe individual athletes have little impact on society as a whole. "Psychotic hatred" would require me to care about them, I'm mostly annoyed that something I don't care about is so prominent in society, taking resources while research I do care about is being cut, and damaging habitat and the planet (Golf being the worst offender). I believe members of the sports fandom aggressively push their hobby into spaces, and found that I need to be clear, firm, and unambiguous about my opinions regarding sports or the fans will railroad me (or the group/organization I'm with), to shift the conversation, the activity, or resources towards sports. I've seen this in several places (both in "private sector" jobs and academia), and it is pronounced on vital articles in my opinion. Thus, here, I push back against the assumption that sports are important, and hope that a balance is at least struck. I do firmly believe that most athletes do not meet the vital article criteria, which you can read about on the Wikipedia:Vital articles main page. When I say that Pelé and "a hot dog eater" are not vital, I'm referring to the vital article criteria, not popularity rankings. Specifically, I don't think they make a "material impact on the course of humanity." I don't think Pelé has had an impact on society at large comparable to people like {{VA link|John Snow}}, or {{VA link|Alexander von Humboldt}}, and think including him (and other sports figures) means excluding someone or something else. I've stated this before and am repeating myself for a lot of people on the talk page, but think it's important to clear up in this reply. We need room, I think we should take from the sports bios before anywhere else. Others disagree, which is their prerogative.

:::::::My attitude towards actors is largely the same, however an individual actor may impact other actors tremendously, and have a much broader impact on society then an individual athlete. Sports themselves might be vital, but the players on the field are largely inconsequential to society at large. The same can't necessarily be said about actors/actresses. That said, I've argued for the reduction of that section as well, however I'm not familiar enough with actors/actresses to know which ones are the LEAST vital, I can maybe pick out some of the most vital ones. I'm actually working on a project to create a "Vital Index" to help sort sections, with sorting the actors/actresses being one of my main motivations. You can read about it a bit if you scroll up to the "Explicitly list interwikis as something you might want to consider" conversation in this talk page. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:52, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::@GeogSage What's improper is that you keep making the same, or very similar, proposals over and over even though your proposals have been defeated. Ulterior or not, your motive is clear and you won't take no for an answer, you'll just keep asking (and keep emoting about past defeats).

::::If it was up to me, the wait time between repeat proposals would be a hard 18 months, not a soft 6. _pbp 00:14, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Some of my proposals have not passed, many have, and many have passed in modified form. I don't consider anything "defeated," because I don't view the proposals with a framework of victory and defeat. I think my proposal to reduce the quota for sports figures was a great demonstration of discussion and compromise. It ultimately resulted in a more conservative cut then I would have liked, but it isn't a race, and people are hesitant to implement big changes all at once. What is improper is the lack of Wikipedia:Civility from you, specifically "ill-considered accusations of impropriety," as I have not done anything that represents a breach of Wikipedia or this projects conduct. Discussions have been happening, and they have demonstrated that there are a lot of opinions on changing things up. Often, the discussions get blown up into long debates between editors, and ultimately nothing happens. I'm glad that the wait time between proposals is not up to you, such a rule would not really be in line with Wikipedia as a whole, and would only facilitate the Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling that is already rampant in this project. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:11, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::@GeogSage: Accusing me of status-quo stonewalling is, how do you say it, "ill-considered accusations of impropriety"

::::::You consider starting one discussion shortly after a similar has failed to NOT be a breach of conduct? Don't you see how that violates the spirit, if not the letter? _pbp 03:37, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::First, my accusation of impropriety is based on my interpretation/understanding of Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling, and my interpretation of your actions/statements. I tried to be clear about which exact stonewalling tactic I was mentioning when I stated it, but as accusations made without evidence are considered a personal attack and you've questioned it, specifically:

:::::::* Imposing a moratorium on proposals for change: Your Desire to impose hard wait times between proposals, and the general argument that we are discussing this topic more often then you'd like. This is not the first time you've brought this up.

:::::::* Claiming consensus supports the status quo when it doesn't: Consensus on most of the discussions has often ended with no clear conclusion but a general vibe of changing things to some degree. I have not repeated specific proposals that failed, yet, such as the ones involving religious figures or musicians that you've brought up, but have had some very similar ones with varying degrees of success. Others have brought up proposals, and I have voted and offered my opinion on those. I'm not going to change my opinion or stop voting with it because of a failed proposal.

:::::::* Accusing change proponents of disruptive, tendentious, or TLDR editing:, specifically "another diverting/delaying tactic used at such a point is for the stonewallers to accuse the frustrated proponents of change of too much editing, either in the form of tendentious editing, or battleground mentality, or making TLDR or WP:DE/WP:IDHT posts." This is not the first place you've used the term "end run" to describe discussions, and you have accused me of IDHT before (I learned the term from you).

:::::::Just want to clear the air on that. If I misunderstand the article on status quo stonewalling, or am misinterpreting your actions, that is an error on my part, but one made in good faith.

:::::::Second, I didn't start this discussion. I participated in a separate one and it moved over here. I try not to start exact conversations as previous ones shortly after, but generally try to modify or adjust based on previous discussion. Proposing a removal of all musicians on level 3 has nothing to do with blocking BLPs from level 4, or lowering the number of athletes in a particular quota. Even if a particular proposal fails, I feel no reason to stop voicing the opinion or supporting similar proposals.

:::::::Third: You stated "On the one hand, I do support significant reductions in sports and entertainment figures," and "On the "blow it all up and start over", I could support that on sports and entertainment, but not in the other aspects of biography." This hardly seems like you actually agree with the status quo, so why would you oppose proposals/discussion to change it? Clearly there isn't a strong consensus if you can agree to some changes. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:11, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:The whole goal here was so that it would be clear what there is or is not a consensus for. Prior to this (and even during this, honestly) it remains unclear to me what exactly the "consensus" was beyond roughly something like "we could probably cut back on sports figures". I would personally be okay with cutting some artists in favor of more specific works, or listing those works at a higher level than the artist themselves. Was there a consensus for that? I've seen other people bring that up, but it was so sporadic I couldn't tell if that was something to look further into.

:Also, I've already mentioned before that trying to host a discussion that would resemble a "do-over" or an "end-run" or anything of the sort would be dumb because Wikipedia has no deadline. Things will change as time progresses and even things that we may view as V4 worthy now may have to be swapped out for something that has surpassed it in importance. I apologize if my attempt here came off that way or if you think this discussion is leading towards that. Though I honestly don't know if anything is going to change based on what I'm seeing here so far. λ NegativeMP1 19:23, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::The problem with these discussions is we never really come to a firm conclusion, people propose all kind of things, and ultimately get bored and the status quo remains. Just to note, I tend to favor works over artist/authors as well. Generally, it looks like we have some lite consensus that some level of change would be good, but dissent as to what that change be. We need firm proposals to vote on. One note, this conversation started when I suggested swapping a book for an author, rather then outright removing them. I'm not opposed to removing the authors/artists either, as long as we maintain their "vital" contributions, when applicable. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:14, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I think that if an artist or a writer contributed to an entire medium or made several influential works, I think their biography would still be considered vital. For instance, even though we list his most "vital" works {{VA link|Nineteen Eighty-Four}}, {{VA link|Animal Farm}}, and {{VA link|Homage to Catalonia}}, I would still keep {{VA link|George Orwell}} at V4. Even though we list a lot of {{VA link|Nintendo}} games, I would still list the company and {{VA link|Shigeru Miyamoto}}, the creator of many of those games. If an artist made several works that are vital themselves, there is a good chance they themselves are vital. What if a reader wants to look into their technique, artistry, or influences for example? Good chance they'd be wondering that if they have several vital works. An article for an album or a book would likely cover the exact creative vision that went into that specific work, but not much of the context going into it or the creative prowess the creator had going into it. The biography would help do that.

:::But there are some instances where an artist may effectively be a one-hit-wonder and the importance of that one item surpasses the artist. For example, I would be open to adding {{VA link|Gangsta's Paradise}}, but I would likely oppose adding {{VA link|Coolio}} since he did not do very much outside of that one song. Since that's all that he did and you could probably summarize his career up to that point (which wasn't very much of note most likely), his biography would not be necessary. Even if that one song could likely be considered vital. How common might those cases be? Not sure. λ NegativeMP1 20:45, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Agree on Orwell, and I'm not completely opposed to ANY biographies. Generally though, I would favor keeping Nineteen Eighty-Four over Orwell. He is perhaps not the best example to discuss the problem, though, because the term Orwellian exists and he is IMO more impactful then most authors we list. {{VA link|J. K. Rowling}} and {{VA link|Harry Potter}} would be a better example of a more general case for an author and their work, at least in my opinion. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:22, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yeah, that's fair. I still think I got my point across, though. Rowling being at V5 and Harry Potter being at V4 is also a pretty good example: the franchise is definitely more important than Rowling herself but because of the franchise Rowling has enough of an impact to be V5. λ NegativeMP1 22:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

This discussion has shown that there are two conflicting opinions held by participants in the Vital Articles project. One side believes that we list too many biographies compared to other topics and should give some of those quota spots to those topics. The other side believes that we should not decrease the number of biographies that we list. Of course, this isn't black and white, and I would say that everyone who participates here is on an ideological spectrum between the two. Some people are closer to the ends and have stronger views on the subject, while others are closer to the middle. Either way, it remains to be seen how these conflicting ideologies affect the list. It doesn't seem like many of the people here on either side are particularly interested in compromise, though, which will make things start getting difficult. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:56, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Some WikiProjects, such as Video games and LGBTQ studies have bot-automated lists tracking the vital articles that are tagged under their respective projects so as to evaluate them, is this something that could be delivered as a suggestion to WikiProject talk pages so others could co-ordinate and track their VAs in the same way? Iostn (talk) 19:16, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:If you want to suggest it, be bold and suggest it. I don't see any problems with the idea. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::Is there a way to see what would be on the list for a particular WikiProject to help evaluate how useful such a list would be, without going to the trouble of setting up JL-bot? CMD (talk) 05:34, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::You could do a search for {{tq|deepcategory:Wikipedia_vital_articles_by_level deepcategory:WikiProject_X_articles}} to find all of the ones the WikiProject has tagged. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:06, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I'm not so familiar with PetScan. It doesn't seem to be working, even for single categories. CMD (talk) 14:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{ping|Chipmunkdavis}} You have to set the search bar to search all namespaces, otherwise it will only check mainspace. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Got it, thanks. That does make it easy to see if this is useful. Will test. CMD (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

I know that many wikiprojects have "drives" when they get backlogged. Could we do a similar thing to try and get our backlog cleared? I'm not sure what the specifics of this would be, but think it would be useful.

;Discuss

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:20, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:I am open to this, but I'm also cognizant that I may not be as knowledgeable in some areas as others are. I'm not sure if others also feel this way or not, but personally I wouldn't want to vote for the sake of voting as that might end up causing more harm than good. GauchoDude (talk) 21:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::Honestly on some of our proposals voting from the gut would likely be helpful, especially if you were open to discussion and changing your vote based on new information. That said, we could use more eyes in the project then the 5-10 editors we average here. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:57, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::During a drive, we could put a hiatus on new proposals, the question would be how to push out a notification that would reach the broader community. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 15:50, 1 May 2025 (UTC)